CONCENTRATED FEEDS. 33 



ished product of the farm, such as live stock, dairy products, 

 poultry and eggs, the farmer will better his position financially 

 and do his part in promoting the prosperity of the nation. 



I will close with a quotation from a well known authority: 

 "The soil is no mere inert mass. It is a scene of Hfe and 

 activity." This is the new teaching. Soil that is wholly inac- 

 tive is unproductive. Movements of air and water, actions of 

 heat and evaporation, life rounds of countless minute organisms, 

 decay and breaking down of plant and soil particles — these are 

 some of the activities of the fertile soil. If our ears were 

 delicate enough we could hear the shuffle of the workers, the 

 beating of the hammers, the roll of the tiny machinery. All 

 things begin with the soil and at last all things return to it. The 

 soil is the cemetery of the ages and the resurrection of life. 



CONCENTRATED FEEDS. 



By Philip H. Smith, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment 



Station. 



The term concentrate is meant to include those feeds which 

 a farmer must necessarily purchase or produce to supplement 

 the coarse fodders like hay and silage, in order to procure the 

 best results in feeding his dairy herd. A narrower definition 

 of the term includes only those feeds which increase the protein 

 in a ration. Under earlier agricultural conditions in New Eng- 

 land, all of the feed stuffs which were used in the maintenance 

 of the farm animals were grown at home. Today it is the 

 exception rather than the rule to find a farm where the entire 

 ration of the animals comes from within its own boundaries. 



The demand for feed stufifs other than those which the farm 

 produces, has led to the utilization of many by-products hitherto 

 deemed worthless. The refuse from the grinding and milling 

 of cereal grains was naturally the first by-product to receive 

 attention. This was followed by others in gradual succession 

 until today the number of concentrated feeds is large and varied. 

 Jslo less than twenty distinct grades of feed, to say nothing of 



